


Flowers Without Tombstones

by TheTriggeredHappy



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Ambiguous team, Blood and Injury, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, M/M, do not read this if you want to be made happy, edit: now with the happy(er) ending because i got slightly yelled at, its REAL fuckin sad my dudes like for real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/TheTriggeredHappy
Summary: Hanahaki Disease Speeding Bullet. That’s it, that’s the summary.





	1. Pharmakon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[requested by @ margaritatrash on tumblr and uhhhhh a Very Good idea. i asked the discord whether i should write a happy or sad ending and this is what they decided ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ here you go enjoy]]

 

 

The thing is, Scout _needs_  to breathe.

 

That meant that just about every form of sickness he contracted was deeply, personally inconvenient, because just about every form of sickness caused the throat and lungs to get all fucked up. Strep throat? Breathing is exactly painful enough to be annoying. Cold? Coughing and sneezing. Even just allergies were annoying, making his throat tickle just enough to make him cough just enough to make it hurt.

 

And he wasn’t sure exactly what this sickness was that he had just yet, but it was getting annoying.

 

The first thing he noticed was shortness of breath, which he attributed to just a slip in his physique, and tried to solve by going on longer or quicker runs. By the time he realized that wasn’t helping, he noticed random, sharp pains in his chest, even when he wasn’t exercising, when he was just hanging out with the team.

 

It wasn’t something he was worried about. Really, it wasn’t. Because Scout was in basically peak physical form, so even something minor like his lungs messing up a little bit wasn’t a big deal, since he already had a head start on anyone else. And he wouldn’t be worried anyways, because Scout never worried about anything, or got scared about stuff, because he could handle it. He was competent, and could handle what was thrown at him, because he was competent.

 

So when his lungs started feeling tight, he didn’t worry about it. And when his torso started feeling achy and hurt to move too far to any extreme, he definitely didn’t worry about it. And when he had to take a moment on the battlefield, wheezing for air and coughing through excruciating pain as he felt as if his lungs were breached despite not having been shot or hit with shrapnel, he was so completely not worried about it.

 

He tried going for longer runs. He tried getting shot enough that Medic healed him with the Medigun, which was a nice temporary fix. He tried ignoring it and downing painkillers when he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

 

And he didn’t think about it. He just didn’t. He wasn’t worried, and he was strong enough that whatever this sickness was, he was going to come out alive on the other side. If he just kept moving and pretended it didn’t exist, he would be okay. That’s what he did every time he felt any kind of fear or doubt or crippling loneliness or deeply-seated fear that he wasn’t, couldn’t, and would never be good enough for anyone around him to want to keep him around, especially considering his general inability to make genuine emotional connections since he coated everything he said and did in a layer of humor as a defense mechanism to—

 

Except he didn’t have any of that! None of it! Not even a little! He couldn’t relate at all to people who had issues with that stuff, because he didn’t have any of those feelings, ever. Never in his life.

 

Never.

 

So about a good month after he first realized something might possibly be wrong, he wasn’t worried about the coughing spells, or the achiness. He wasn’t worried about his throat feeling rough from it. He wasn’t worried about the frequency at which he had to stop during battle in order to prevent damn near coughing his lungs out, or the fact that his scores were dropping rather steadily, enough so that there was a very brief team meeting called by Miss Pauling (the coolest person) to discuss how _some_  of them were underperforming as of late and to reiterate expectations.

 

He knew deep in his heart that it would pass. It was just some temporary sickness. He would be okay. He was always okay, and any previous less-than-okay feelings were long gone with the “pretend it isn’t there” treatment, too.

 

And then, all at once, he was flipped directly off of his stride.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first time he coughed up blood, it was on a Sunday. The team—the _whole_  team, even Engie and Medic and Sniper pulled from their usual isolations in their respective corners of the base, working or tinkering or doing whatever the fuck it was that Sniper did—had gathered and was playing cards, drinking as if they didn’t have work the next day, or (in the case of Demo) like they didn’t have anything to do ever again.

 

Scout was talking, and taking swigs of piss-poor beer, and accidentally fucked up talking and drinking in such quick succession and inhaled just enough liquid to send him into a coughing fit. And usually that wasn’t a big deal, but with the added tightness in his lungs and raw throat, the coughing fit was swung from “loud and funny” into “oh fuck this is a bad situation” territory. Scout ended up half crumpled forward, holding a napkin to his mouth, wheezing weakly and blinking out involuntary tears, trying to gasp in any amount of air and forcing down the instinct to start hyperventilating as his head swam.

 

But he wasn’t like, dying or anything, and so he eventually waved off the team, embarrassment flooding his veins all at once at their concerned, pitying, and annoyed looks. He didn’t try and talk for another few moments, though, just simmering and waiting for his lungs to stop hurting quite so badly.

 

And then he looked down at the napkin, and saw it speckled with red dots.

 

He was frozen. Because despite his brain frantically scrambling and trying to dig up excuses—well maybe it’s just the light making the beer look red or whatever, maybe he just bit his tongue while he was coughing and didn’t notice, maybe maybe maybe maybe—he knew, he _knew_ , that it was from his lungs. There was something wrong, and there was blood coming from his lungs. And he froze up entirely, vision swimming, thoughts swimming, blood swimming—

 

“You alright there, laddie?” Demo asked from his left, catching the look on his face (whatever it was).

 

From his other side, Sniper looked over as well, furrowed his eyebrows, and the light caught just so, and Scout could see the concern flicker across his eyes behind the sunglasses he never seemed to take off.

 

A spike of pain throbbed through his lungs and abdomen.

 

He crumpled up the napkin.

 

“Yeah, it’s whatever, just uh. Fuckin’ hate inhaling water, huh? That sucks,” Scout said lightly, falling directly back into the usual song and dance without missing a step. He threw the balled-up napkin towards the trashcan a ways away. It hit the rim and bounced in.

 

He didn’t worry about it. He didn’t.

 

A week or so later, he went to Medic with a carefully-crafted lie just after battle. He’d taken a breath just as the enemy Pyro blew flames at him, it felt like he’d singed his lungs, and oh, just out of curiosity, would he get healed by the Medigun for that?

 

“Why, yes,” Medic said, raising one intimidating eyebrow. “It should.” And he trained the Medigun on Scout for a few moments, watching the gauge carefully. And watching the gauge carefully. And frowning.

 

Which Scout _wasn’t worried about_ , but he asked anyways. “Uh, somethin’ wrong?” he tried conversationally.

 

“Yes. Your overheal is diminished.” Squinting at the gauge. “ _Greatly_  diminished.”

 

His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He tried to keep his breath even. His lungs still hurt like a bitch, even with the Medigun trained on him.

 

“Huh, that’s weird, anyways, later Doc!” Scout said, and ran off, ignoring Medic’s shouting behind him. He didn’t need to shower or put his stuff away anyways, he could wait until later. It was fine.

 

So, he was avoiding Medic, now. Which wasn’t ideal, because that meant that his scores took a real nice little dip. But any day, he was going to start getting better, so that was okay. Once he was in top form again, he’d just work extra hard to make up for it.

 

His coughing fits increased in frequency. On one morning run, he wound up coughing up blood again, and vomiting from a combination of pain and abject terror, the second of which was sharpened by the fact that he wasn’t far from Sniper’s van when it happened and could probably have been heard or spotted if Sniper just glanced out the window. He resolved to take slightly shorter runs. It happened again the next day, and the one after that. He stopped taking runs altogether.

 

That helped a little bit. He didn’t know why, but it did. The progression of whatever was going on (although Scout would argue that nothing was even going on) slowed dramatically. He managed to smuggle more painkillers, and stopped doing as bad. He even started figuring out how to work around his completely temporary situation, and managed to start climbing back up to where his previous scores were, albeit painfully slowly.

 

Then he ran out of painkillers, and got caught in the infirmary trying to smuggle more.

 

“Tell me what you have been hiding, Herr Scout,” Medic said, voice full of the threat and danger that most of the team was not so unlucky as to have fallen under, bonesaw held in one hand, stood between Scout and the door to the infirmary.

 

For a few seconds, Scout considered making a break for it. Then, all at once, a moment of doubt struck, and he wondered if he could even outrun Medic anymore. The doctor was the second-fastest person on the team, after all, and was downright pissed, and Scout already felt every breath like a needle stuck to the inside of his ribcage.

 

“Fine,” he said, not happily.

 

He started explaining, carefully, under-exaggerating as much as possible, his symptoms. The tightness of his lungs, the stabbing pains all throughout his abdomen. He was halfway through when Medic held up a hand to stop him.

 

“Does the feeling make it difficult to perform physical tasks?” he asked, mechanically calm.

 

“Uh...” Scout said, thinking for a second, “...yeah?”

 

“Does it feel almost akin to that of something being within your abdomen that is not supposed to be there?” he asked next.

 

Scout blinked, considered. “...Well, yeah actually. That’s basically exactly what it feels like,” he said, surprised.

 

Medic looked relieved. “Ah. I know what the problem is,” he said, moving into the infirmary, gesturing for Scout to follow, which he did, tentatively. “It has a simple fix.”

 

“Yeah? What’s goin’ on?” Scout asked, feeling a sense of joy wash through him.

 

“Bullets!” Medic said simply, beginning to pull down some device from where it was suspended.

 

A pause.

 

“Bullets?” Scout asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

 

“Bullets!” Medic agreed, continuing to heft the equipment into whatever position he was trying to get it into. “Most of the time, when shot on the battlefield, the bullets either pass directly through the tissue and out the other side, or you die and return with them ejected from your system. However, on occasion, they will be lodged into your body and when you are healed with my Medigun, the wounds will simply close around the bullet, leaving it lodged inside your body!”

 

Scout placed a hand on his abdomen, feeling suddenly that he wanted to vomit. “What?”

 

“Do not worry,” Medic said, waving off his discomfort cheerfully, “I have fixed this many times before. I do this procedure routinely on Heavy, since he is most often subject to this problem. I have never had to do it to you before, since you are so scrawny that the bullets have almost no tissue to become lodged in!”

 

Scout pretended that that didn’t hurt. Similarly to how he pretended that his lungs didn’t feel like they were imploding.

 

“Regardless, if you could please lie down on the examination table, I simply need to take an... in English you call it an x-ray I believe? Picture through the skin?”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Scout said, carefully getting up onto the table.

 

“Yes! Well, I need to take one of those, and then I can simply remove the bullets and you can be on your way!” Medic said.

 

The process of the x-ray being shot was surprisingly quick, all things considered. Scout just had to sit completely still for a few minutes, which he could totally do, even with the sharp pain striking through his chest with every inhale. It was just so easy and not difficult. Medic only told him off once for moving around. Just super easy.

 

While the x-rays were finishing up being developed, Scout was sitting on the end of the exam table, eyeing up the medicine cabinets and wondering if Medic would yell at him for taking painkillers since he was about to get the bullets removed anyways. Medic returned, and asked him a few more questions.

 

“How long has this pain been persisting?” Medic asked, leaning lightly against a cart as he waited, moving to take a sip from a cup (tea? Coffee? Home-brewed beer? Did it matter?) while he waited for an answer.

 

Scout scratched at the back of his neck. “Uh. Like, two months?” he murmured with a shrug.

 

Medic choked on and spat out the tea-coffee-beer, looking thoroughly alarmed. _“What?!”_ he demanded the moment he had moderate control over his whole situation.

 

Scout shrugged again, looking away. “It’s not that bad,” he murmured.

 

Suddenly, a shadow of doubt was overtaking Medic’s features. He was staring at Scout with increasing befuddlement, which was probably a bad sign. Scout backtracked.

 

“I mean, it’ll be fixed now though, right?” Scout asked quickly. “Like, you can fix it.”

 

“Has this pain been consistent?” Medic asked instead of confirming, which was _definitely_  a bad sign.

 

“Uh... I mean, not exactly,” Scout replied, unsure of if that was the right answer.

 

Medic’s frown deepened. He didn’t ask any more questions, just checked his watch fretfully and moved to go retrieve the x-rays.

 

When he returned, he put them on the light-table wall thing and switched it on without acknowledging Scout.

 

He immediately recoiled.

 

 _“Mein Gott!"_  he exclaimed, visibly shocked.

 

Scout jumped to his feet and darted over to go see what exactly the problem could possibly be to make him react so poorly tO  _OH DEAR JESUS FUCKING GOD._

 

Now, Scout wasn’t necessarily one for book learning. He’d passed Biology in freshman year of high school narrowly and only by cheating like a _lot_  and only because he didn’t want to be kicked out of the class because he was sat next to a very pretty girl. But he was at least eighty percent sure that there wasn’t supposed to be what looked like an entire fucking plant growing in his chest.

 

The concerning part was that he could see the form of it, could kind of tell where his various organs were from the patterns of the roots, and it looked like it was sprouting upwards into his lungs, and—and this was ridiculous, and he was going to wake up any second now, because he definitely had to be dreaming, because this was just impossible, but for a second it almost just—it looked like the plant was beginning to bud.

 

Silence in the infirmary for a few long moments.

 

“Scout, if you could please lie down on the examination table again,” Medic requested, voice even and calm.

 

Scout did so.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A few hours later, Scout was lying in his bunk, staring at the ceiling and thinking about some things.

 

Medic, the moment he was done stitching Scout closed again, had uncomfortably announced that the plant residing in his ribcage was entirely healthy. He said that he would have taken steps to try and remove the plant from Scout’s chest, but it had grown so integrated and was so intertwined with his bones and nervous system that he was concerned that any attempt to cut it out of him could paralyze him permanently. He said he would do further research and get back to Scout, and to avoid extra exercise outside of battle until further notice, and to take it easy during battle as well.

 

So Scout had basically been grounded for the week. No running around and doing stuff, no practicing in the makeshift batting cage or quick jogs.

 

He ended up trying to get some solace in hanging out with some of his teammates. He had that figured out to a science—he figured that basically the whole team probably hated him (they called him annoying often enough), but he’d found the mercs too polite to turn him away right off the bat. There was Engie, who could tolerate him for maybe a good hour before getting fed up with him, then Heavy, who could handle Scout for a good forty minutes if he wasn’t busy. Then there was Sniper, who was just about impossible to track down, but would put up with Scout for indefinite periods of time while doing whatever task he’d left the safety of his camper home for.

 

It turned out that Engie and Heavy could put up with Scout for even shorter periods of time with him coughing constantly, so he was left to track down Sniper.

 

He found the guy on the roof of the base one day, smoking and peering out into the desert through his scope.

 

It was the normal one-sided “Scout talks and they pretend to listen except not even really because it’s Scout and nobody cares” conversation he would have with his teammates up until the first time he had a coughing fit.

 

Sniper sat up just slightly, shifting to turn his head even more slightly to catch Scout in his periphery. Scout, who’d taken to sitting against the low concrete wall that made up the edge of the roof, winced internally, sure that Sniper was going to kick him out now, make him leave, because admittedly, that was an even worse cough than usual.

 

“You alright?” Sniper asked instead, with what sounded like very genuine concern in his voice. The coughing fit redoubled, and Scout nodded, not convincingly considering he was sure he would hack up both lungs and a few ribs at this rate.

 

Finally it wore off enough for him to say, “I’ll be fine.”

 

“What’s the coughing about, then?” Sniper asked, still half-looking at Scout.

 

“Just... sick with somethin’,” Scout said, shrugging, voice torn to shreds after the fit. “I’ll be fine.”

 

Sniper was looking at him full-on now, and Scout tried to force down the way his eyes were watering under the assault of pain in his chest. There was concern in the arch of his eyebrows. “Sound like a right mess, you do,” he said, and his hand twitches as if he’d surprised himself saying it.

 

Scout wasn’t offended—it was true. “It’s whatever,” he said, a bit more insistently, looking down at his shoes, scuffing a pebble of concrete along the ground. “Doc’s figuring out how to fix it.”

 

Sniper was quiet for a few seconds. Finally, he turned back to look out the scope again. “Well, hope he figured somethin’ out soon,” Sniper murmured, voice almost too low to hear right, gravelly in a different way than Scout’s. “We need our Scout, aye? Not some bloke coughing his lungs out after every dash.”

 

Scout winced. “You seen that?” he asked, guilt throbbing through his chest along with the pain.

 

Sniper nodded, an almost imperceptible down-up-down-up. “Noticed your score fallin’. Don’t know if the rest have.”

 

“Probably have,” Scout muttered, tucking his knees up a bit. Sniper shrugged.

 

“Maybe,” he said, shifting his rifle to sit the way he wanted it. “Maybe.”

 

Scout figured that was that, and was flipping through his mental catalogue of topics for literally anything to talk about before his brain threw him off the rails when Sniper spoke again.

 

“Is that why you’re up here?” he asked.

 

Scout processed the sentence a few times trying to make sense of it. “What?” he asked when it wasn’t working.

 

“The, er.” Sniper fished for the right word for a few moments. “The cough. You’re sick. That why you’re up here?”

 

“Kinda,” Scout admitted, a bit guilty. “Sorta.”

 

“Here I thought you were just up here to say hi to your favorite teammate,” Sniper said, just the slightest tilt in his voice to betray the fact that he was joking, the tiniest lopsided quirk of his lips.

 

It startled a laugh out of Scout to hear _Sniper_  of all people _making a joke_ , only for his lungs to seize up on him, and he promptly started hacking something fierce, eyes crushing closed against the onslaught of pain.

 

“Quit being—being funny,” Scout managed to gasp, “I’m gonna die over here.”

 

“That’d be the first time someone’s called me funny in a nice way,” Sniper replied, which made Scout laugh a bit again.

 

“First time for...” He’d meant to finish that sentence with the word “everything”, but instead he stared down at the elbow he’d been coughing into. There, nestled in the crook of the joint between forearm and bicep, among droplets of blood (which were, alarmingly enough, the least important part of the picture) was a single flower petal. He continued coughing weakly, trying to process the image in front of him.

 

“Mate?” Sniper asked after a silence, the length of which Scout wasn’t sure of.

 

“Huh?” Scout asked, moving to pocket the petal. “Uh, sorry. Zoned out. What are you doing, by the way?”

 

“I was lookin’ to see what sorts of animals are out prowling this time of day,” Sniper mumbled. “Not much out there.”

 

“Been at it for a while, huh?” Scout asked.

 

“Well, I was nearly done by the time you showed up,” Sniper admitted.

 

“Then what are you still doing up here?” Scout asked with a mild frown.

 

“Just chattin’, I suppose,” Sniper said quietly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A few days later, Scout had found a jar, and stored the three flower petals he’d coughed up over those few days in the jar, placed it on the table next to his bed.

 

Medic told him between matches that he’d figured something out, to go see him after battle.

 

His news was... confusing.

 

“Hanni-hockie?” Scout repeated, brows furrowed. “I... don’t know what that means.”

 

“Ha-nah-ha-key,” Medic corrected, sounding out the word carefully for him. “The disease is very rare, and hardly documented. I needed to ask for help from Herr Demoman in order to track it down—most respectable medical records wouldn’t detail such a thing, it’s considered a myth and elaborate practical joke by most medical professionals.”

 

“Well how do I fix it?” he asked, because that morning he’d woken up and thought he could hear the flowers rattling in his lungs.

 

“Well, to know the solution, first we need to pinpoint the cause,” Medic said, picking up a clipboard with paper and a pencil. “First of all, the defining connector between the few recorded cases is that it is made worse by being around the individual’s romantic interest.”

 

“Oh,” Scout said. “So Miss Pauling.” Because obviously the only person that could possibly refer to was Miss Pauling. Everyone knew that. She was the only person Scout’s had a crush on for years, she was just the coolest person he knew, he was just so crazy in love with her because she was just very smart and cool and also pretty which was secondary to how smart and cool she was. He just had so many feelings for Miss Pauling. Just, so many. Everyone knew that.

 

But Medic was tapping the edge of the clipboard with his pencil, looking at Scout with narrowed eyes. “Scout, it _only_  gets worse with contact with a primary romantic interest,” he said, just a bit sternly.

 

“Yeah,” he said, picking at the tape on his hands, “I just, it’s gotta be Miss Pauling. Love that lady.”

 

Because he just did, because she was just so cool. Didn’t they know she was cool? She was just very cool. And it didn’t really matter to him that she didn’t like him back romantically, or even really at all, because that wasn’t important, because he just loved her so much.

 

(Because he didn’t need her to love him back, because nobody was going to do that, as far as he could tell. He just needed _someone_  to be in love with. Someone cool and smart and pretty and definitely a girl because he just liked girls because he was a guy and guys like cool pretty smart girls.)

 

He just thought she was so darn cool and smart and he was head over heels for that girl.

 

~~Except he wasn’t.~~

 

It was the sort of love that meant he would be willing to wait as long as it took for her to like him back.

 

~~Except, pretty and smart and cool as she was, he’d never really been in love with her, simply a passing fascination that was easily twisted into justification.~~

 

Because he was a hot young guy, and surely she would realize that eventually, and he didn’t want to pressure her or anything, so he gave her space because he wasn’t an asshole.

 

~~Except really he just wanted her exactly too far away to turn around and call him out on it, to call him out for the ruse, to expose the truth and tell everyone that he wasn’t in love with her, or any girl for that matter, because he was~~

 

Medic’s pencil tapped against the clipboard.

 

“Junge,” Medic said, and his voice was a little bit more gentle now, the word vaguely familiar even while foreign to American ears. Medic didn’t use the word often, and had never bothered to explain what it translated to, so Scout assumed it just didn’t matter. “I need you to be honest with me.”

 

“What? Why don’t you think it’s Miss P?” he asked, because it  _was_.

 

“Miss Pauling has not been on base personally more than twice in the past several months,” Medic replied flatly.

 

Scout swallowed hard. “Well, maybe I’ve got a little different of a kind than most people,” he protested.

 

Medic didn’t look annoyed with him, or upset with him. He mostly just... he just looked a little bit sad, which set off alarm bells in Scout’s addled head.

 

“Scout,” he said, tone serious, “I did not want to alarm you, but since you are not taking this seriously, I have no choice.” He moved to pick up a large tome from the cart he was leaning on, flipping it open to a marked page and turning it around to show it to Scout. It was an illustration (a surprisingly artful one) of roses growing through a ribcage and blooming within a human’s lungs. “This disease is not a virus or bacteria—it is a parasite. It will begin by growing into the lungs and blooming there until the cavity is roughly 80% full. You will be nearly unable to run a few short weeks after the parasite blooms. Then, roughly two weeks following that, you will stop being able to run altogether as the plant’s growth severs your spinal collumn, if, and _only_  if, there is no thorn growth already causing you to bleed out from the inside, killing you before then. If you do not die of suffocation or internal bleeding, you will then die as the parasite consumes more energy than your body can intake, and you will starve to death. With your body mass, you are terminal and have four weeks to solve this problem after the flower blooms before it will certainly kill you.”

 

Scout had recoiled already, and felt, again, the deeply-seated need to vomit.

 

Medic allowed a few more seconds for the information to sink in before closing the book with a resounding _c_ _lap_. “Do you understand the severity of your situation now?” he asked.

 

Scout nodded. Swallowed hard. “Is. Is there any cure?” he asked weakly.

 

“Yes,” he said, cradling the book in one arm. “If the subject of your affection—the _real_  subject—returns your love, the plant will shrivel up and die, and will be ejected from the body. There are theories as to how this can be, but it’s undoubtedly effective.”

 

Scout nodded, looking down at his hands. He didn’t bring up Miss Pauling again, because Medic wasn’t ~~buying it~~  believing him about how serious he was.

 

“Can’t you just... cut it outta me?” Scout tried.

 

Medic rapped his fingertips against the closed book. “Technically. But all sources found of that happening have mentioned a more severe side effect.”

 

“What’s the side effect?” Scout asked, brows furrowing.

 

“There’s a chance that you might survive such a procedure,” Medic said, pushing up his glasses, “but you’ll be unable to love ever again.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the second week after the first petal on the rooftop, he’d run out of space in the jar and had moved on to storing the petals in a larger one. They were bloodied, and fragmented, and he couldn’t quite identify what kind of flower it had to be.

 

Before battle one day, it was identified for him.

 

He was stood out next to one of the far gates, pre-emptively prepping to flank any larger conflicts that happened, and the only other person next to the gate with him was Sniper, who was checking his rifle over (apparently, as he’d once told Scout when asked about his meticulous weapon care, his rifle was a much more finicky piece of equipment than the others’ shotguns or pistols, and required a lot of maintenance). He’d taken a few deep breaths to steady himself, and coughed as lightly as possible, trying his best not to shift the plants around due to the inevitable coughing fit that it’d start.

 

Sniper had stopped checking over his rifle, and was looking over at him querilously.

 

“Mate, are you...” he started to ask, then stopped, hesitant. Scout raised an eyebrow in question. “...Are you wearing perfume?”

 

Scout frowned. “What?”

 

“You smell like bloody flowers,” Sniper said, gun lowered to hang at his side, other hand stuffed in his pocket. “An’ not “bloody” as in “goddamn”, “bloody” as in “flowers an’ blood”. What’s that about?”

 

“What, did you smell me or somethin’?” Scout asked defensively, moving to lean his foot against the wall to tighten his laces.

 

“Well you’re the only other person around here, and I see no corpses nor lilacs in the area, so I’m assumin’ it’s you,” Sniper replied, also a bit sharply, flustered now.

 

Scout looked up at him, eyebrows drawn together. “Why specifically lilacs?” he asked, humor starting to settle into his tone now.

 

Sniper glanced away, adjusting his glasses. “The, er. The house I grew up in, lilacs were what we had growin’ around the porch,” he said, “long as I can remember. I’d have to go nose-blind not to recognize the smell.”

 

“I thought you—“ Scout started, and took a minute to cough. Sniper waited. “I thought you grew up on a farm.”

 

“Farms can have flowers too,” Sniper shrugged. He still looked just the slightest bit unsettled, but marginally less so. “Dunno. You just smell like lilacs an’ it surprised me. Didn’t think you’re the type to, er. Wear perfume.”

 

“I’m not,” Scout said, moving on to his other shoe. “Guess that’s just how I smell.”

 

“How’s that?” Sniper asked, clearly fighting back a grin now.

 

“Hey, Soldier’s a lawyer and his roommate is a wizard,” Scout said, his own grin lopsided. “Any thing’s possible.”

 

“Anything’s possible,” Sniper repeated with a chuckle, looking through the gate and out into the field. “Right.”

 

Scout, all at once, laughed, and promptly doubled over coughing.

 

Sniper watched with alarm, but Scout hardly processed that over the feeling of his lungs going into panic mode, retching with the severity of it.

 

“Mate,” Sniper said, clearly quite a bit freaked out. “Mate. Scout!”

 

Scout didn’t reply, clutching at his own shirt nearly hard enough to rip it. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that realistically there were probably only a couple of petals in his throat, but it felt as if it had clogged up entirely.

 

 _“Medic!”_ Sniper yelled next, breaking into a run towards the main room.

 

Medic submitted a formal notice that Scout was recovering from a sickness and would be away from battle for a week or two. The team began trudging back to base looking downright miserable. Even one fewer person was enough to turn the tides of battle, and they started losing, and often.

 

That was also the day he first coughed up an intact flower, staring at it with horror, there in a puddle of spit and mucus and blood and bile on the dusty, sandy, gritty ground.

 

Sniper was right; it was a lilac.

 

Week three, Scout found himself looking in the mirror at two in the morning. Without morning runs or a battle to get to, his carefully-maintained sleep schedule had gone to hell. That, and the fact that he could only get an hour or so’s sleep at a time before he woke up, hardly able to breathe.

 

The team was annoyed with him. Most of them disguised it as worry and concern, but he knew, deep down, that it wasn’t either of those things, it was just annoyance.

 

He had dark circles under his eyes, and his face looked pale, his eyes and cheeks hollowed. What little muscle he had was disappearing, and he... he was dying. Visibly. Rapidly.

 

He thought about some things.

 

In the theoretical scenario that against all odds, the plant had made a mistake and decided he wasn’t in love with Miss Pauling, that there was someone else that he was in love with, and it had made a really funny ridiculous mistake and decided he was in love with one of the guys on the team, who would it be?

 

His brain supplied him the answer instantly, and started flicking through examples to prove it. He shut that down and carefully went through the options, ignoring the part of his mind that already knew (and perhaps had always known, even before all of this, and perhaps had—)

 

Not Soldier, because Soldier was a nutcase. Not Pyro, because he literally had no idea who they were or what they looked like or if they were even a guy or girl. Demo? Not particularly, Demo was a nice guy and all but Scout had never really gone out of his way to talk to the guy. He reminded Scout of his brothers, in a lot of ways. So not him. Engie? Engie was more the team’s unofficial dad than anything else. Heavy? Heavy was old enough to be Scout’s actual dad. Same story with Medic, and with Spy; there was no fuckin’ way it was any of those three.

 

Which only left...

 

It had to be Miss Pauling, that little panicked part of his brain told him, it just had to be.

 

Could it be—

 

He was in love with her!

 

Possibly—

 

He’d been in love with her since the day they first met!

 

Sniper?

 

He coughed, and crumpled to the ground, head ringing as it bashed against the ground during the fall. Abject terror coiled in his guts much like the roots of the plants coiled through his body, and he was struck with the realization that this is what Medic said was going to happen. The plant had severed his spinal column. Even if he survived this, he might never walk again. He...

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper. He wasn’t. He wasn’t in love with Sniper in the same way that he had never had crushes on any of the guys at school, on the track team, on the baseball team. He wasn’t in love with Sniper in the same way that he didn’t feel anything when he _accidentally_  stumbled into a gay bar that one time in Boston and had been hit on by that one objectively attractive guy, in the same way he just so happened to allow himself to get drunk so he ~~could have plausible deniability~~  just didn’t remember what all happened.

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper because he remembered all the things they said in church about guys who love other guys, remembered the mumblings in the locker rooms about “people like that”. He wasn’t in love with Sniper because that would be bad and wrong and if he was going to die from this disease, he might still have a chance of not going to hell for it.

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper because what was even so great about Sniper, anyways, he was just a teammate. Just because Sniper was one of the only people who ever really listened to Scout about anything, that wasn’t enough to prove Scout was in love with him. Just because Sniper was quiet in the interesting way, and tall and lanky and constantly hunching as if to appear smaller and less intimidating, and would occasionally trail mumbles of stories when Scout asked, maybe having secretly been hoping someone would come bother to ask him things, none of that proved he was the person Scout was in love with. Just because he had somehow, on more than one occasion, managed to wheetle kernels of truth out of Scout simply by an obvious, earnest interest in what Scout had to say for reasons Scout couldn’t fathom, that wasn’t enough to prove that Scout was in love with him.

 

~~He was.~~

 

 

~~He so, completely was, for all of those reasons and a hundred million more, despite all those other reasons against all odds.~~

 

And it wasn’t like he would ever, in a million years, love Scout in return. No way that even if Scout did love him, theoretically, hypothetically, that Sniper would look at him and feel love, feel the need to hold him or kiss him or even just take his hand.

 

Who would?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day after battle, Medic went to check up on Scout, to see if he was holding up okay, just to see if his condition was getting much worse and to see if maybe going through with a surgery would be worth it. He’d figured that even if Scout didn’t want it removed completely, perhaps he could at least cut down the plant, try and trim it, perhaps just to buy Scout a little bit more time. It would be a taxing process to perform, but Medic would do it anyways. He was worried. The whole team was, in fact, had been badgering him constantly to see if there was improvement, or any way they could all help. They were worried. In times of crisis, it really became all the more obvious—the team loved each other like family, and would do whatever they could to keep that family intact. So he went to check up on the boy, because surely there was hope. Surely he could keep the youngest, liveliest, most cheer-inducing member of their family alive for just a little bit longer.

 

Scout was already gone.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[find me on tumblr @ thetriggeredhappy thanks]]


	2. Pharmakon (Alternative)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[i got slightly yelled at for writing that sad shit so i wrote an alt ending here u go]]

 

 

Week three, Scout found himself looking in the mirror at two in the morning. Without morning runs or a battle to get to, his carefully-maintained sleep schedule had gone to hell. That, and the fact that he could only get an hour or so’s sleep at a time before he woke up, hardly able to breathe.

 

The team was annoyed with him. Most of them disguised it as worry and concern, but he knew, deep down, that it wasn’t either of those things, it was just annoyance.

 

He had dark circles under his eyes, and his face looked pale, his eyes and cheeks hollowed. What little muscle he had was disappearing, and he... he was dying. Visibly. Rapidly.

 

He thought about some things.

 

In the theoretical scenario that against all odds, the plant had made a mistake and decided he wasn’t in love with Miss Pauling, that there was someone else that he was in love with, and it had made a really funny ridiculous mistake and decided he was in love with one of the guys on the team, who would it be?

 

His brain supplied him the answer instantly, and started flicking through examples to prove it. He shut that down and carefully went through the options, ignoring the part of his mind that already knew (and perhaps had always known, even before all of this, and perhaps had—)

 

Not Soldier, because Soldier was a nutcase. Not Pyro, because he literally had no idea who they were or what they looked like or if they were even a guy or girl. Demo? Not particularly, Demo was a nice guy and all but Scout had never really gone out of his way to talk to the guy. He reminded Scout of his brothers, in a lot of ways. So not him. Engie? Engie was more the team’s unofficial dad than anything else. Heavy? Heavy was old enough to be Scout’s actual dad. Same story with Medic, and with Spy; there was no fuckin’ way it was any of those three.

 

Which only left...

 

It had to be Miss Pauling, that little panicked part of his brain told him, it just had to be.

 

Could it be—

 

He was in love with her!

 

Possibly—

 

He’d been in love with her since the day they first met!

 

Sniper?

 

He coughed, and—felt pain shooting through his back. He carefully reached a hand behind himself and ran it over his lower back. Was he going crazy, or could he feel roots wrapping around his spinal column?

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper. He wasn’t. He wasn’t in love with Sniper in the same way that he had never had crushes on any of the guys at school, on the track team, on the baseball team. He wasn’t in love with Sniper in the same way that he didn’t feel anything when he _accidentally_  stumbled into a gay bar that one time in Boston and had been hit on by that one objectively attractive guy, in the same way he just so happened to allow himself to get drunk so he ~~could have plausible deniability~~  just didn’t remember what all happened.

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper because he remembered all the things they said in church about guys who love other guys, remembered the mumblings in the locker rooms about “people like that”. He wasn’t in love with Sniper because that would be bad and wrong and if he was going to die from this disease, he might still have a chance of not going to hell for it.

 

He wasn’t in love with Sniper because what was even so great about Sniper, anyways, he was just a teammate. Just because Sniper was one of the only people who ever really listened to Scout about anything, that wasn’t enough to prove Scout was in love with him. Just because Sniper was quiet in the interesting way, and tall and lanky and constantly hunching as if to appear smaller and less intimidating, and would occasionally trail mumbles of stories when Scout asked, maybe having secretly been hoping someone would come bother to ask him things, none of that proved he was the person Scout was in love with. Just because he had somehow, on more than one occasion, managed to wheetle kernels of truth out of Scout simply by an obvious, earnest interest in what Scout had to say for reasons Scout couldn’t fathom, that wasn’t enough to prove that Scout was in love with him.

 

~~He was.~~

 

~~He so, completely was, for all of those reasons and a hundred million more, despite all those other reasons against all odds.~~

 

And it wasn’t like he would ever, in a million years, love Scout in return. No way that even if Scout did love him, theoretically, hypothetically, that Sniper would look at him and feel love, feel the need to hold him or kiss him or even just take his hand.

 

Who would?

 

...

 

...But, looking at himself in the mirror, realizing the ticking clock of his time left to live was measured by hours rather than days, he thought, first off, that he didn’t _want_  to die. And, realizing that he’d already crossed and burnt that bridge behind him, he thought to himself that he didn’t want to die alone, here, on the floor before the mirror, or hemorrhaging in his sleep. He realized it would likely be an inconvenience to die elsewhere, where other people would have to find him, but... couldn’t he be selfish? Just this once?

 

That wasn’t fair to say. He was always selfish, going out and making the team have to pretend to like him, making the team have to put up with him. Maybe he deserved to die alone, hell if he knew.

 

He still didn’t want to be alone just then. He... he just didn’t.

 

Outside his window, a noise.

 

Scout turned on the spot, clearing his throat weakly, eyebrows furrowed. He moved to lean out the window, looking for the source of the sound.

 

The stub of a cigarette—not the fancy kind that Spy smoked, or the cigars that Soldier or Demo very rarely smoked, just a normal cigarette—burning in the sand.

 

He turned his gaze upward towards the rooftop.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He shuffled through the door onto the roof, and spotted Sniper there at the edge.

 

It was the same place he was sitting before, some half-busted storage crate with a ratty tarp thrown over it. He didn’t have his rifle with him this time, just his knife sitting on the ledge, and another cigarette burning between his lips, and a bottle in his hand.

 

He ticked his head back in a way that meant he heard Scout, and turned around to catch sight of him as he approached.

 

He gave Scout a once-over. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. There was a tiny lamp half-flickering on the ground, and it threw shadows across him, illustrated his expression as he took in Scout’s appearance.

 

He held out the bottle towards Scout.

 

Scout moved forward to accept it.

 

He went about sitting on the ledge and trying to read the label as Sniper lounged backwards to stare past him out into the desert. “You’re drinking straight tequila?” he asked after a second as he deciphered the words.

 

Sniper shrugged. “Not much different than drinking whiskey or scotch,” he mumbled. His voice was rough, maybe from tiredness, maybe from the cigarettes, maybe from the alcohol. “Small sips or else you’ll get hammered within the half-hour.”

 

Scout took a solid gulp in response, and the burn was so severe on his wounded throat that he couldn’t even cough from it. Or speak, or breathe, but those were in question relatively often for him regardless. Sniper raised eyebrows at him, but didn’t protest the action.

 

“So you feelin’ any better?” Sniper asked.

 

The instinct buried almost as deep in his chest as the lilacs was to say “Yeah”, to say “Of course”, to say “I’m doing great actually” and change the subject maybe. Because he was Scout, he was always doing okay, and if he wasn’t, it was temporary. His instinct was to go and do a whole dumb joke about how so very well he was doing—with obvious exaggeration, because that’s what made it a joke, but not sarcastically, persay. He would explain that he was doing just so great, and then he would launch into a tangent, and then they would be off into the races so there would be no follow-up about how he was doing.

 

He turned the bottle around in his hands.

 

“No,” he said, a little hesitantly.

 

Sniper frowned. “What’s goin’ on, then?” he asked, voice just even slightly quieter, very convincing concern slipping through.

 

Why couldn’t he just believe that people might actually like him? He knew it probably wasn’t true, but couldn’t he pretend? Make-believe?

 

Maybe.

 

He took another gulp, squeezing his eyes shut, attributing the burn in his eyes to the alcohol.

 

“Well, ‘m fuckin’ dying,” he choked out, voice rough because of the alcohol and nothing else, eyes threatening to pool and spill over from the burn in his throat and nothing else, breath shaky because of the flowers and nothing else.

 

Sniper was staring at him.

 

“What?” Sniper asked, and the concern in his voice was thick now, muddled with horror and disbelief.

 

Scout took another—

 

Sniper snatched the bottle away from him. “Stop that,” he scolded, “what did you say?”

 

“I’m dying,” Scout repeated, a little irritated.

 

Sniper was visibly agitated, and crushed the remainder of the cigarette under his boot—he wasn’t exactly smoking it now, anyways. He looked away, paused, looked back at Scout.

 

“What... what from?” he asked next.

 

Scout barked a laugh, coughed into his elbow. It was weak, and didn’t clear his lungs at all. “Does it matter?” he asked, tone joking, but it wasn’t funny.

 

Sniper couldn’t seem to hold eye contact with him very well, but he was clearly trying. “Are you... in trouble? With the boss?” Sniper asked hesitantly.

 

Scout frowned. “Huh?”

 

“For missing battle an’ all. Is that...?” Sniper trailed.

 

“Oh. No. No, that’s not... no,” Scout replied, carefully. The loudspeaker lady was scary and all, but she probably wouldn’t just, like, put him down, just because he was sick.

 

Would she?

 

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been any word passed down, it’s been nearly two weeks since... y’know,” Sniper said, also carefully.

 

“Yeah, you’d think Miss P would’ve shown up by now. She’s usually quicker about stuff like this,” Scout said, looking at the lantern as it flickered suddenly.

 

When he glanced back up, Sniper’s expression had shifted.

 

“Right,” he said, sounding just... “Miss Pauling.”

 

Silence. “What’s that mean?” Scout asked, a bit defensively.

 

“Nothin’,” Sniper said, and took a sip of the tequila, “just keep forgettin’ is all.”

 

“Forgetting...?” Scout trailed.

 

“You being head over heels in love,” Sniper said, and Scout couldn’t be imagining it, he sounded _bitter_. “Just forgot.”

 

And there was a strong spike of pain just then, around his spine again. He didn’t cough; his body seemed to have given up doing that for the moment, seemed to have realized that it was pointless.

 

“I’m not,” Scout murmured.

 

Sniper frowned, pulled out of his thoughts so suddenly. “Hmm?”

 

“I’m not,” Scout murmured again, looking away now. “I’m not in love with her.”

 

Silence. He didn’t want to see what Sniper’s expression had to be.

 

“She’s... she’s nice, she’s cool, but... I’m just...” He shifted, turned, legs dangling over the side of the roof now over the drop. “I’m not in love with her. I think I _thought_  I was. Or... I wanted to be, maybe, but. I’m not. Never have been.”

 

Silence. He _really_  didn’t want to see what Sniper’s expression had to be.

 

“Just... everything would be so fuckin’ _easy_  if I was,” he said, and perhaps the plant had sprouted through his throat now, because it felt like there was a lump he just couldn’t swallow down. “She wouldn’t like me back, because it’s _me_ , but... at least that wouldn’t be _weird_. At least I could just be...” His fingertips dug into the concrete hard enough to ache. “At least I could be _normal_.”

 

“Scout,” Sniper said slowly, voice painstakingly even. “Get away from the edge.”

 

Scout kept talking. He wasn’t sure he could stop even if he wanted to. Did he want to? “I’m already scrawny as hell and, and run my mouth and pick fights just for the sake of it, I’m already not the strongest or smartest or the best at shooting a gun, I’m just _fast,_  and—“ He barked a laugh. It still wasn’t funny. “And I can’t even run anymore! So now I’ve really got nothin’, huh?”

 

“Scout, get _away_  from the _edge_ ,” Sniper repeated, with more conviction this time.

 

“And even if I was good at any of that bullshit, I would _still_  be a weirdo, huh? Even if I was big and muscley and could fuckin’ _read_  anything, I would still be the team _freak_.” There was no disguising the fact that he was just about crying, now. Great. Now he got to die looking like a coward.

 

 _“Scout,”_ Sniper said, agitated.

 

“I ain’t gonna jump,” Scout snapped. “I’m a dead man anyway.” He paused, looking down towards the ground a ways below. “...Even though that would just... that would make it faster.”

 

Silence.

 

“It... at least it would be quick,” Scout mumbled, half to himself. “Maybe I’d...”

 

He was gripped by the back of his shirt and hauled away from the drop.

 

He yelped, flailing, coughing as the yelp set off his lungs again. The lamp got knocked over, rolled along the ground. “Hey, the—the hell are you doin’?!” he demanded.

 

He found himself pushed with his back against the tarp and box, one of Sniper’s hands fisted in the front of his shirt. His eyes were wild, his hands shaking, his face pale, even in the light of the lantern.

 

“Don’t _do_  that,” he croaked, his attempt at a snarl falling weak.

 

Scout looked up at him with wide eyes, struggling to inhale.

 

“And don’t say those things,” he continued, managing to settle his voice, at least somewhat. “If you’re a freak, what’s that make me, then?”

 

Scout just looked at him. Sniper huffed out a breath, releasing his shirt and sinking against the box as well, burying his face in his hand. Silence on the rooftop. Sniper’s shaking was starting to subside. Scout, distantly, noticed his own shivering after a moment or two.

 

“You’ve no idea,” Sniper sighed, rubbing at his own eyes absently. “You think _you’re_  the odd one out. At least you _talk_  to people, at least you’re wanted, at least you’ve... god, just forget it. You really think you know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong?”

 

“Yeah. I do,” Scout said.

 

“Oh really?” Sniper sneered, face still half-hidden in his hand, eyes scrunched closed tightly. “You know what it’s like to be weird, to be not right, to have somethin’  _wrong_  with you?”

 

“Yeah,” Scout said again, “I do.”

 

“Do you, now?” Sniper asked, raising his head to level a glare at Scout.

 

Scout nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

 

Sniper glared at him for a few moments, something angry and raw in his expression, like a fresh snake bite, like a cleaned bullet wound, like broken bone cutting through skin. And there was something vulnerable starting to peer through as well, something that made Scout’s heart skip like a scratched record.

 

When he leaned in, Sniper met him halfway.

 

Sniper tasted like the tar of the cigarette that was crushed into the ground just a foot or so away, and Scout knew he himself tasted like blood and chlorophyll and that tequila bottle sitting forgotten on the ledge. Their noses were a bit smushed together, but they parted for just a split-second before returning to correct it with the most subtle tilt. Scout’s eyes were burning, and his lungs were, too, so they had to part again.

 

“Aren’t you scared of getting sick?” Scout asked, hand settling on Sniper’s cheek.

 

Sniper smiled sadly, tilting his head into the touch, his own calloused fingers carding through into Scout’s hair. “We’re already sick, aren’t we?” he pointed out, voice rough.

 

“Terminal,” Scout replied, and kissed him again.

 

And he stopped breathing.

 

Sniper caught the way he froze up, and pulled back, noting the sudden alarm. Scout reached a hand to his own chest, then his own throat, mouth gaping as he tried to take in air dumbly. Understanding flashed across his features, then terror.

 

Déjà vu as Sniper rose to his feet and broke into a dead sprint, shouting for Medic.

 

Scout, meanwhile, leaned out over the ledge and retched violently.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the time Medic and Sniper arrived on the scene (only a few minutes later, Medic still in his pajamas with his coat thrown over his shoulders haphazardly, clutching the Medigun with a manic expression), Scout was staring down at the sand and grit far below, eyes wide, at what seemed to be... all of it. The whole plant, the whole thing, just... gone. Out of his system in one fell swoop. His throat had never felt so raw, and involuntary tears streamed down his face, and he was pretty sure that every gut that he possessed was completely empty of everything, but... it was gone. It was done. He was free.

 

He was _alive_.

 

He flashed a weak thumbs-up at Medic, who very nearly collapsed with relief. Sniper caught the gesture, and relaxed minutely. He promptly moved over and took a glug from the bottle of tequila.

 

He was still dragged to the infirmary to double-check that everything was alright. His lungs would take time to heal, and he would need a couple days just to see if the scarring would cause lasting damage, but by the time the sun was up, Medic seemed satisfied that he was cured. He also seemed to know that his research was correct, and cast a smug, knowing look between him and Sniper when he found the latter sitting half-asleep in the waiting room of the infirmary. Then again, Medic always looked pretty smug. That was his resting, non-angry expression.

 

The moment Medic had left the area to go make himself a _strong_  cup of coffee, Sniper moved to carefully take Scout’s hands.

 

“So... you’re gonna be okay?” he asked, still clearly worried.

 

Scout took a moment, took a deep (sore) breath, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “I’m gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[am i forgiven yet blake]]


End file.
